The invention relates to an apparatus for gluing textile fabrics, particularly those of outerwear clothing pieces, comprising a layout station, a hot pressing station, a cooling station and an automatic stacking device which has a stacking table mounted so that its height can be adjusted and it can also reciprocate along the operating direction of the apparatus.
Devices are known which have both discontinuous as well as continuous methods of operation, and have a conveyor belt by means of which the textile fabrics are conveyed from the layout station to and through the hot pressing station and the cooling station and are then led to an automatic stacking device. The automatic stacking device is disposed at the end of the conveyor belt and/or the cooling station and the stacking table thereof is movable therebeneath. In discontinuously operating devices the stacking table reciprocates in the operating cycle of the conveyor belt (German Utility Model No. 6,802,030).
In another known apparatus, the automatic stacking device is divided over the entire operating width of the apparatus into at least two adjacent operating areas. Each operating area has its own stacking device. The stacking devices of the operating areas are controllable both individually and in unison, whereby the control is accomplished by detectors disposed at the beginning of the operating areas. Each stacking device has, in addition to a height-adjustable stationary stacking table, a stack rake which can be moved forward and backward in the operating direction of the apparatus and which cooperates with a strip-off rake. These rakes are disposed above the stacking table and place the glued textile fabrics on the stacking table as they are delivered thereto by the conveyor belt of the apparatus. The separation of the stacking device into at least two adjacent operating areas improves the method of operation of the servicing personel (German Pat. No. 2,325,469).
In these known devices, during each stacking step the stack elements reciprocate along the distance needed for the longest textile fabrics to be glued, for example a front panel of a jacket. In gluing different length fabrics, and especially with small fabrics such as collars, the stacking elements performed a great deal of excess motion, which results in lost time. These devices also have no means for holding the stacked varying sized textile fabrics firmly in place so as to be free of shifting relative to each other and thus allow them to slip during the rapid movements of the stacking table. This limits the height to which the fabric can be stacked.